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  <title>PyCon: A Brief Debrief</title>
  <meta name="date" contents="2014-04-17 11:00" />
  <meta name="author" contents="Deb Nicholson" />
  <meta name="tags" contents="pycon, conference, python" />
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<p><i>Note from Chris Webber: I wasn't able to make it to this year's
PyCon due to wrapping up the crowdfunding campaign.  However, Deb
went, and was able to write this nice recap below.
If you get a chance though, I encourage you to check out our
<a href="/pages/campaign.html">campaign page...</a> we are right at the
end of the campaign and could really use your help to end it in style!
</i></p>

<p class="centered">
  <a href="https://us.pycon.org/2014/">
    <img src="https://us.pycon.org/2014/site_media/static/img/pycon2014-logo.png?3d9c8c2bd424"
         alt="PyCon logo" />
  </a>
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<p>It was really awesome to catch up with people and talk with them
about Python and community-building and MediaGoblin at the recent
<a href="https://us.pycon.org/2014/">PyCon in Montreal.</a> It finished
so recently that <a href="http://openhatch.org/">some folks</a> may
even still be sprinting.</p>

<p>I saw a super-useful talk on
<a href="http://pyvideo.org/video/2590/turn-your-computer-into-a-server">turning
your computer into a server</a> that mentioned MediaGoblin as one of
the reasons that you would want to do that. This talk is pretty great
in that the target audience is the person who is pretty new to
managing hardware. If that sounds like you (because it's definitely
me) then I urge you to check it out. (Thanks
<a href="http://asheesh.org/">Asheesh</a> and
<a href="http://littlegreenriver.com/">Karen!</a>)</p>

<p>The other talk I really enjoyed was one about
<a href="http://pyvideo.org/video/2661/technical-on-boarding-training-and-mentoring">Technical
on-boarding, training and mentoring</a> which went deep on how to
bring new people in to a technical role. There were some things that
we already do here with both our technical and non-technical people,
but they made a great point about quickly getting new-ish people to
help even newer people. The presenters, Kate Heddleston and Nicole
Zuckerman, provided a link for more materials that you may also want
to take a look at on
<a href="https://github.com/heddle317/onboarding">their git repository.</a> </p>

<p>It was truly excellent to hang with the crew from the Rochester
Institute of Technology. I found out that some of the students there
are using MediaGoblin to host stuff and knew all about our work. Plus,
the <a href="http://magic.rit.edu/people/index.html">MAGIC folks</a>
had some pretty big news of their own; RIT is going to be offering a
<a href="http://magic.rit.edu/foss/minor.html">minor in FOSS.</a> That
is truly a game-changer! So exciting!</p>

<p>I met some great new people who were interested in our larger work,
our SpinachCon work and also people who just like goblin stickers or
ascii art. I gave away loads of stickers, learned some stuff,
<a href="https://us.pycon.org/2014/schedule/presentation/267/">chatted
with folks about legal issues</a>, found my
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_%28singer%29">new favorite band</a>
and caught a cold on the way home. I'm looking forward to attending
PyCon again next year and hopefully, we'll be able to host a
MediaGoblin sprint! The
<a href="https://us.pycon.org/2014/about/staff/">PyCon Organizers</a> did
an absolutely fantastic job -- thank you!!</p>

<p class="centered">
  <a href="/pages/campaign.html"
     ><img src="/blog_images/goblin_force_badge-campaign.png"
           alt="goblin force badge for campaign"></a>
</p>

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